[Tex/LaTex] Thesis template to B5 paper size. What about margins

marginspaper-sizethesis

I successfully changed the paper size from A4 to B5 of the Thesis template downloaded from http://www.latextemplates.com/template/masters-doctoral-thesis

I modified the main.tex file by setting twoside and adding the following lines:

\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage[dvips=false,pdftex=false,vtex=false,b5paper]{geometry}
\geometry{bindingoffset=5mm}
\usepackage[cam,b5,center,pdftex]{crop}

The margins are set in the Thesis.cls file at line 74. The default values for A4 paper are:

\setmarginsrb  { 1.5in}  % left margin
               { 0.6in}  % top margin
               { 1.0in}  % right margin
               { 0.8in}  % bottom margin
               {  20pt}  % head height
               {0.25in}  % head sep
               {   9pt}  % foot height
               { 0.3in}  % foot sep

which have been modified to:

\setmarginsrb   {4.7cm} %leftmargin
                {3.4cm} %topmargin
                {3.4cm} %rightmargin
                {3.4cm} %bottommargin
                {15pt}  % head height
                {0.15in}  % head sep
                {9pt}  % foot height
                {0.3in}  % foot sep

These settings produced a page layout like the following.
typical page layout
The questions are:

  1. What are the correct margins for the B5 paper size? My University does not provide any information.
  2. With the settings I made in the main.tex and Thesis.cls, it seems I can change only left and right margin, because nothing seems to change by modifying the other parameters. Did I mess up with the code?

Best Answer

I have solved my issue by upgrading the template to the latest version, which includes the specification of the margins in the main.tex file.

\geometry{
    paper=b5paper,
    inner=16mm,         % Inner margin
    outer=24mm,         % Outer margin
    bindingoffset=10mm, % Binding offset
    top=20mm,           % Top margin
    bottom=28mm,        % Bottom margin
    %showframe,         % show how the type block is set on the page
}

The class file, that now is named MastersDoctoralThesis.cls, includes the following code, which I did not change.

\RequirePackage{geometry}
\geometry{
    headheight=4ex,
    includehead,
    includefoot
}

\raggedbottom

Finally, I have found some rules of thumb about margins to use here (in Italian).

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